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Activists in the Concerned Citizens Against Industrial CAFOs group are holding a press conference with Food & Water Watch at University of Maryland Eastern Shore prior to the Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc.’s Town Hall on their ambient air monitoring “study”.

For three years, citizens on the Lower Eastern Shore have been trying to pass the Community Healthy Air Act to compel Maryland Department of the Environment to do a comprehensive study of air emissions from poultry factory farms, including data collection to be analyzed by a panel of experts, and a full report to be provided to the General Assembly (and the public) of the data collected. In addition, the report will include an analysis of the data, consisting of a public health assessment and a determination of whether the industry is complying with clean air laws.

For the third year in a row Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc., Farm Bureau, and the Eastern Shore Delegation vigorously opposed the Community Healthy Air Act (CHAA) claiming that the emissions from factory farms are not a health problem and do not need to be studied.

Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc., is now claiming their own study will suffice in finding the data we need to protect eastern shore residents from their pollution. Activists oppose the sentiment.

WHAT: Eastern Shore residents and allies will be gathering for a press conference to tell Maryland Department of the Environment not to allow Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc. to monitor themselves. Any of their involvement in testing factory farms is not independent research and their study is unacceptable for protecting the health and safety of all Maryland residents from factory farm pollution.

VISUALS: Activists gathering outside Henson hall or in room #1121 will unveil a large visual featuring a “fox guarding a factory farm,” a riff on a fox guarding a henhouse. There will also be large signs demanding the poultry industry cannot monitor itself.

WHY: On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, communities often live mere feet from industrial chicken houses that are home to as many as 50,000 chickens each. Across the eastern shore, families are suffering from unusually high rates of asthma, lung disease, and lung cancer. For more information on the fight to pass the Community Healthy Air Act, visithttps://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/big-week-fight-against-factory-farms-maryland

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Food & Water Watch champions healthy food and clean water for all. We stand up to corporations that put profits before people, and advocate for a democracy that improves people’s lives and protects our environment. www.foodandwaterwatch.org

Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold & uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people’s health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.